page_title: Buteogallus
section_title: Fossil record
hierarchical_section_title: Buteogallus / Systematics and taxonomy / Fossil record
caption_attribution_description: English: Buteogallus fragilis fossil specimen, La Brea tar pits
context_page_description: Buteogallus is a genus of bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. All members of this genus are essentially neotropical, but the distribution of a single species extends slightly into the extreme southwestern United States. Many of the species are fond of large crustaceans and even patrol long stretches of shore or riverbank on foot where such prey abounds, but some have a rather different lifestyle. Unlike many other genera of raptor, some members are referred to as "hawks", and others as "eagles".
  Most of the species have a characteristic tail pattern. This consists of a black base, a wide white middle band, a wide black band, and a quite narrow white band on the feathertips that is often hard to discern or may be lost when the feathers are very worn. Only the white-necked hawk and the rufous crab hawk have a very different tail patterns.
context_section_description: The fossil record of Buteogallus has meanwhile turned out to be quite rich indeed, with many species being erroneously assigned to other genera at first. The genus – like many buteonines of today – probably succeeded earlier birds of prey during the Miocene and never seems to have occurred outside the Americas. From the time of the last ice age, an array of prehistoric species is known, some of them very large. On Cuba, a particularly gigantic species survived deep into the last ice age, but probably not until human settlement.
  †Buteogallus enectus (Middle Miocene; Sheep Creek, Sioux County, USA)
  †Buteogallus sodalis (Middle Pleistocene; Fossil Lake, Oregon) – formerly in Aquila
  †Buteogallus fragilis (Late Pleistocene; Southwestern USA) – formerly in Buteo or Geranoaetus
  †Buteogallus milleri (Late Pleistocene of Southwestern, USA) – formerly in Buteo or Geranoaetus
  †Buteogallus royi (Late Pleistocene of Cuba)
  †Buteogallus borrasi (prehistoric) – formerly in Aquila or Titanohierax
  †Buteogallus daggetti (prehistoric)
caption: Buteogallus fragilis fossil
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